EDMONTON - The Killicks could be the most balanced family you’ll ever meet — and not just because of the hot yoga all six of them do together.

Like other families, their lives are busy, but not hectic, because they control how busy they want to be, explains Dad, Tyler. Instead of everyone running in different directions, they’re running the same way most of the time, and that’s a very calming thing.

The calmness is palpable in their warm and inviting acreage home that sits outside of Stony Plain, a 45-minute drive southwest of Edmonton. The Killicks are gathered in the family room off the kitchen. Besides Tyler, 44, there’s mom Glenna, 43, and their four kids — Von, 21, Gil, 17, Sami, 15 and Tobi, 13.

They banter, finishing each other’s sentences and stories about shared experiences, of which there are lots because as Ty puts it, “we do everything together.”

Besides the hot yoga classes three times a week at Bikram Yoga West Edmonton, there’s the family plumbing and heating business they run from the house, the homeschooling, and the DiSplaCeD iSlanDerS, the indie/alternative/rock family band the kids sing and play in.

Where other families can count the number of precious hours they spend together, the Killicks count the number of hours they’re apart — about two hours a day.

“We’re totally opposite that way,” observes Glenna, noting some people are weirded out by all that family time.

“Sometimes people are shocked that we all watch a movie together,” adds Sami.

The Killicks, who are Christian but not affiliated with any church, have always been close since Ty and Glenna decided to home-school their kids. It gave them the flexibility to spend time together around Ty’s job, which sometimes took him away from home for days or weeks at a time.

They started out living on Vancouver Island — the kids were all born in Cowichan Valley — but tough economic times brought them to the town of Devon in 2000. They bought the acreage and built their house eight years ago.

Ty introduced the family to hot yoga after a customer in the city noticed how bent over he was because his back was out of shape. A massage would help, she told him, but it would be temporary relief.

What he needed was a lifestyle change, something good that he could physically do for his body three to six hours a day. She gave him a pass for he and Glenna to try the Bikram studio, and the couple finally found something they could do as a family that benefits everyone.

It’s also something the kids can do for life, into their 80s and 90s, Glenna notes. Ty says he didn’t know what to expect but yoga has turned out to be “the most voluntary pain I’ve ever signed up for. It was such a challenge.”

Glenna admits she wasn’t a fan at first because she doesn’t like heat (the studio can get up to 40 degrees C), but she appreciated all the good it was doing her family — it’s a great way to detox, she says — and the peaceful 90 minutes where no one, other than the yoga instructor, says a word.

Von, who couldn’t touch his feet when he started, demonstrates, while sitting with legs outstretched, how far his hands extend beyond his feet.

“Gil can do a handstand now,” Von adds.

And while Ty’s back still gives him problems sometimes, he recovers more quickly.

With prodding from their yoga instructors, three of the Killick kids, Von, Sami (the bendiest of the bunch) and Tobi, signed up for the International Yoga Asana Championship in Los Angeles last June. There they met a reporter and photographer from the New York Times, who, intrigued by the Canadian yoga family, arranged to come and spend a day with them back home.

That’s how the Killicks happened to make the front cover of the Times’ Sunday magazine last month, wearing as little as you possibly can in a family newspaper. A similar photo of them appears here. It’s what they wear doing hot yoga.

“It’s a very stripped down environment,” Ty explains. “You’re all standing there basically naked, covered in sweat, there’s no hiding anything.”

Hockey players, mixed martial artists, even American actors, who you’d recognize and that the Killicks have taken classes with but won’t name, “are the same sweaty bag of crap when they’re done. They’re sucking wind and dying in there too,” Ty says with a smile.

Since taking up yoga, the family is more conscious of the food they put in their bodies. They’re definitely a lot healthier than they were three years ago, Glenna says.

The Killicks know their family life is unique and special in this day and age, but there was no template for that, Ty says, other than “Ty and I both agreed we’re not going to be fearful about parenting,” Glenna adds, “and they’ve hung on to that.”

Ty points out that he didn’t finish high school, “we don’t have any financial or background pedigree, we just wanted our kids to be good contributing citizens, to not be takers, but to be givers.”

“Those are the things that are important,” Glenna says, “more important than if they’re doctors or lawyers.”

You’ll find a video of the DiSplaCeD iSlanDerS doing yoga and performing their own song, I Love Hot Yoga, on Youtube. They recorded the video at the Bikram Yoga West Edmonton studio last May to thank all the yogis and yoginees in the Edmonton yoga community who helped them raise funds so they could compete in the International Yoga Asana Championship in Los Angeles.

The Killick kids put on a lot of volunteer performances at events in and around Stony Plain and Edmonton.